Moscow Activist Assails Anti-semitic Book

February 6, 1973

NEW YORK (Feb. 5)

Mikhail Agursky is a cybernetics engineer, and a Moscow activist. The Nov. 16, 1973 issue of The New York Review of Books published a long article by him, which was taken from the USSR, reviewing the anti-Semitic novel “Beware–Zionism!” Yesterday, Agursky issued a statement via telephone from Moscow to the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry excoriating a recent novel, “The Promised Land,” by Yuri Kolesnikov, excerpts of which appeared in the Sept. and Oct. issues of the Soviet magazine “Oktiabr.”

The novel alleged that the liquidation of six million Jews was part of an arrangement between the Zionists and the Nazis and that Mussolini and Eichmann were Zionist agents. In his statement to the SSSJ, Agursky said: “This novel releases the Nazis from their responsibility for this massacre. All Soviet press is strictly regulated, and such a novel could not be published without an official approval. The mere fact of publishing this novel is very alarming since the Soviet officials are longing to rehabilitate Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, this fact shows very clearly the powerful circles in Russia which seek to represent the Second World War as a result of a Jewish plot and to rehabilitate Nazis.

“The Soviet leadership is likely not to be able to restrain these circles. It is a great potential danger to all Soviet Jews. I make a strong protest against the article in the Soviet press. Please publish my statement.”

Research into the genetic traits of the Jewish ethnic groups in Israel, begun by the late Dr. Haim Sheba, will be continued and expanded through a IL 50,000 grant from Malben, a subsidiary of the Joint Distribution Committee, it was announced yesterday in Tel Aviv by Samuel L. Haber, JDC executive vice-chairman. The research program is conducted by the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer Hospital.